FileDialog.Filter Property

Definition

Gets or sets the current file name filter string, which determines the choices that appear in the "Save as file type" or "Files of type" box in the dialog box.

public string Filter { get; set; }

Property Value

The file filtering options available in the dialog box.

Exceptions

Filter format is invalid.

Examples

The following code example uses the OpenFileDialog implementation of FileDialog and illustrates creating, setting of properties, and showing the dialog box. The example uses the Filter and FilterIndex properties to provide a list of filters for the user. The example requires a form with a Button placed on it and the System.IO namespace added to it.

var fileContent = string.Empty;
var filePath = string.Empty;

using (OpenFileDialog openFileDialog = new OpenFileDialog())
{
    openFileDialog.InitialDirectory = "c:\\";
    openFileDialog.Filter = "txt files (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*";
    openFileDialog.FilterIndex = 2;
    openFileDialog.RestoreDirectory = true;

    if (openFileDialog.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
    {
        //Get the path of specified file
        filePath = openFileDialog.FileName;

        //Read the contents of the file into a stream
        var fileStream = openFileDialog.OpenFile();

        using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fileStream))
        {
            fileContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
        }
    }
}

MessageBox.Show(fileContent, "File Content at path: " + filePath, MessageBoxButtons.OK);

Remarks

For each filtering option, the filter string contains a description of the filter, followed by the vertical bar (|) and the filter pattern. The strings for different filtering options are separated by the vertical bar.

The following is an example of a filter string:

Text files (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*

You can add several filter patterns to a filter by separating the file types with semicolons, for example:

Image Files(*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF)|*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF|All files (*.*)|*.*

Use the FilterIndex property to set which filtering option is shown first to the user.

Applies to

製品 バージョン
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
Windows Desktop 3.0, 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

See also